Courtesy: WKRC-TV Cincinnati

Frontier Communications’ DSL service to some residents in Sardinia, Ohio has been progressively slowing down to the point Speedtest.net rated one man’s connection an “F-Minus.”

Larry Meeker’s broadband service from Frontier achieved speeds of just 190kbps — about four as fast as traditional dial-up Internet service.  Upload speeds reached just 1kbps.  When Meeker called Frontier Communications to complain about the lousy broadband speeds, he reports Frontier didn’t seem in any hurry to improve his service.

WKRC-TV TroubleShooter Howard Ain reports Frontier had done little for Meeker initially, saying “it will cost a lot of money for the company to upgrade” the broadband facilities in inherited from an acquisition from Verizon Communications.

Frontier changed its mind when Ain indicated the company’s broadband woes were about to be a feature item on WKRC’s 6pm local news.  Meeker also told the station he was preparing to file a complaint with Ohio’s public utility regulator.  Just a few days before the report aired, Frontier called Meeker to tell him improved service was on the way.

Meeker reports it used to take 10-15 seconds to load even basic web pages over Frontier’s DSL service.  But after the company began work on Meeker’s connection, pages are loading much faster, usually after 1-3 seconds.

The Sardinia man noted the best way to get action out of Frontier might be to call the media to get the company to do the right thing.

“I’m very happy that it is so easy to contact Channel 12 news and Howard Ain and know that somebody is at least going to call you and if there is a problem they are going to check it out and investigate it,” Meeker told the station.

A spokesman for Frontier Communications blamed the old owner — Verizon Communications, for inadequate broadband facilities in place to serve Sardinia and surrounding areas. The company says it is spending $90 million on upgrades because people are using the Internet a lot more in the area.  New circuits bringing additional capacity are anticipated to begin service by the second week of February.

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WKRC Cincinnati Broadband Service 1-18-12.mp4[/flv]

WKRC TroubleShooter Howard Ain covers Frontier’s lack of performance in Cincinnati suburb Sardinia, Ohio.  (2 minutes)

Comcast’s controversial deal with Verizon Wireless to cross-promote cable and wireless service has come to fruition in Washington and Oregon with a new introductory offer pitching Comcast’s Xfinity cable with Verizon Wireless service that includes a $300 customer rebate.

The first appearance of the new joint marketing effort started this week in metro Seattle and Portland, and includes nearby communities.  Comcast employees are now staffing at least eight Verizon Wireless stores in Seattle, primarily to pitch the company’s cable service.

The most aggressive offer includes a Visa prepaid card rebate of up to $300 for new customers who agree to bundle Comcast’s phone, Internet, and television service with a new Verizon Wireless smartphone or tablet plan, assuming the two companies can find enough new customers who do not already subscribe to cable or mobile service.

Traditional telephone companies like CenturyLink and Frontier Communications, which provide service in the region, appear to be most at risk from the bundled service promotions.  CenturyLink provides landline telephone service and DSL bundled with satellite television.  Frontier does the same and also offers a limited part of the region FiOS fiber to the home service it acquired from Verizon Communications.

Should customers sign on to the bundled offer from Verizon and Comcast, there would be little reason to do business with either CenturyLink or Frontier.

Consumer advocates like Public Knowledge, along with smaller cell phone companies, satellite provider DirecTV, and other consumer groups have co-signed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission raising questions about the parameters of the cross promotion deal, which the companies and groups say “could be a significant realignment of the competitive landscape in these industries.”

Former Comcast customers throughout southern Illinois and north/central Indiana are saying goodbye to Comcast’s 250GB monthly usage cap now that a new service provider has arrived.  NewWave Communications acquired Comcast properties in the lesser-populated parts of the two states and is upgrading service to areas Comcast ignored for years.

For customers in Olney, DuQuoin, Pickneyville, Mt. Carmel and Benton, Ill., cable system upgrades will soon allow NewWave to provide cap-free 50/5Mbps speeds to homes and businesses.  The upgrades are long overdue.  NewWave often copes with customer criticism regarding the deteriorating cable systems it inherited from other providers.  Customers have previously accused the company of overselling their broadband service and for service outages.  Upgrades generally quiet the complaints.

NewWave Communications, headquartered in Sikeston, Mo. serves over 80,000 customers in the midwest and southeast United States, specializing in smaller communities larger providers typically ignore.  Comcast has spent most of its money and attention in larger cities in Indiana and northern Illinois, and although the company sometimes provide a range of services in more rural communities, upgrades typically came much later.

NewWave’s plan for success involves bringing advanced services to its mid-sized city service areas with the hope it will attract more service bundling and a bigger revenue stream.  NewWave will offer triple play packages of phone, cable, and broadband service and is introducing digital video recorders to a larger share of its customers.

The company has shown no signs of fearing the word “unlimited,” touting it in their literature for phone and broadband service.

Broadband everywhere, except where it isn't.

Comcast is willing to install cable service for a neighborhood in Ashburnham, if six families agree to split the estimated $94,000 installation fee.

Paying more than $10,000 each just to get cable television from the nation’s largest cable operator is not a top priority for those living on Old Pierce Road and Rindge State Road, but getting reliable Internet access is.  Comcast officials have refused all requests to extend cable service to the families, because there are simply too few of them in the company’s eyes to justify the expense.

Families were surprised to find neither Comcast or Verizon interested in serving the neighborhood, because state broadband maps show coverage in Ashburnham from both the dominant cable and phone company.  Comcast suggested the families sign up for satellite Internet service or use a wireless provider instead.  But families complain paying Verizon Wireless or AT&T for mobile broadband is expensive and has resulted in rationed Internet use because of very low data caps.  Even worse, when the weather turns bad, the wireless Internet service effectively turns off.

The affected families want better answers.

“I’m not afraid to spend $400 to get out of a [wireless] contract if I can have Internet when it’s cloudy out,” James LeBlanc of Rindge State Road told the Sentinel & Enterprise. “But I don’t have $10,000 just sitting in my pocket.”

Wireless broadband for rural Massachusetts is simply not a serious solution for most because of the low usage allowances that accompany the service.

“It’s difficult when it’s raining out, and we can’t get online, and I have to tell my kids, sorry, you can’t do your homework tonight,” his wife, Wendy LeBlanc told the newspaper. “My oldest goes to Overlook (Middle School) and I’m going to have to send in notes for any assignments that require Internet research to be done at school.”

“It’s a hardship for our family,” said Brian Belliveau, of Old Pierce Road. “We don’t have enough Internet service. We get into situations where we use all of our data within the first two weeks of the month and have to go without it the rest of the month. Our kids are in school with kids who have service all the time, and they don’t understand why we don’t. It’s hard to explain.”

Comcast’s attitude so far has been ‘tough luck — it’s a money thing.’  Company officials simply won’t front the construction and installation costs because it would take too long to recoup that investment.  That leaves the families with few alternatives.

Although Ashburnham, a community of 6,000 in north-central Massachusetts, is considered “rural,” it is not nearly rural enough to qualify for federal broadband funding.  Besides, according to broadband mapping data supplied by area cable and phone companies, Ashburnham is already “well-served” with broadband.  But don’t tell that to families without Internet access.

Local officials were stunned the multi-billion dollar company wouldn’t assume upfront expenses in return for goodwill and devoted, long-term paying customers.

“I may be sort of old-fashioned, but a company sometimes has to do what is in the best interest of its customers to gain their loyalty,” Selectman Gregory Fagan said. “I’m offended when you say the company can’t afford it. Our schools are giving our children Internet assignments. There’s been discussion of giving tablets to all kindergartners. It’s not like in the ’80s when these things were a luxury. They are must-haves now.”

AT&T has announced an across-the-board rate increase for smartphone and tablet data plans, raising prices $5 Sunday for most plans while including incrementally larger usage allowances:

• Lite Usage: 200MB for $15 is now 300MB for $20;
• Average Usage: 2GB for $25 is now 3GB for $30;
• Higher Usage: 4GB for $45 is now 5GB for $50.
• Regular Tablet Plan:  2GB for $25 is now 3GB for $30.
• A new, higher use tablet plan will offer 5GB for $50.
• Overlimit fees are now $20 for 300MB of additional usage on the lite usage plan, $10/GB on all other plans.

AT&T originally charged $29.99 for unlimited-use data plans.  The company claimed in the summer of 2010 its new limited-use plans would save most customers money, but except for very light users, that is no longer true.

AT&T's throttles are engaged.

AT&T says the new usage allowances reflect customer resistance to paying overlimit fees when they exceed AT&T’s existing caps.  But the company has also previously said the vast majority of its customers never exceed the old allowances. According to AT&T, 65 percent of its customers use less than 200MB per month and 98 percent of its smartphone customers use less than 2GB of data per month. That effectively means every customer will now face a $5 rate hike for increased usage allowances most will not currently use.

Existing customers can hang on to their old data plans indefinitely, but those who bounce between carriers will be forced to choose from a more limited, and expensive, menu of options.

Considering that AT&T’s most significant rival Verizon Wireless currently charges $30 for just 2GB per month, AT&T officials are still able to claim their new prices represent a “great value.”

Customers grandfathered under AT&T’s old unlimited-use plans are also discovering they are anything but unlimited.  So-called “heavy users” who exceed 2GB of use per month are first warned by AT&T they are in the “top 5%” of usage-hungry users, after which their wireless connection is throttled to as little as 15kbps for the remainder of the billing cycle.